WELSH — A Vietnam war hero from Welsh will be honored by his hometown Saturday during a special ceremony to officially dedicate the interchange of Interstate 10 and La. 99 at Exit 54.
The Welsh Exit 54 interchange will be renamed the Sp4 Donald C. Gillett Memorial.
Gillett was fatally wounded by a sniper after jumping from a helicopter in the jungles of Vietnam in 1969. He was 23.
“His loss was a big one for the town,” Karen Trahan of the Friends of the Welsh Museum said. “Now when people see his name when they leave Welsh they will remember him.”
Trahan attended school and college with Gillett and remembers him fondly.
“What I remember of Charlie in high school was that everyone liked him and that was obvious because he was class president for all three years of high school,” she said. “He always had a twinkle in his eyes and liked to play pranks, but he always got down to business when he had to.”
A memorial dedication ceremony is set for 2 p.m. March 4 at the Welsh Community Center, 101 Palmer St. A reception will follow at the Welsh Museum, 202 East South St.
Museum board president Mary Sue Lyon, who grew up next to the Gillett family and whose nephew is named after the fallen hero, said the dedication is a way to eulogize his life and sacrifice.
“It’s something we have always wanted to do, but no one took the initiative to get the ball rolling till now,” she said.
A special display highlighting Gillett’s childhood, family, education and military life will be on display 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday-Friday through November at the Welsh Museum.
The display features old photographs, letters, certificates, yearbooks and other memorabilia on loan from Gillett’s family and friends.
Gillett attended Welsh High School where he lettered in football and track. He also served as class president for his sophomore, junior and senior years and was active in the Future Farmers of America Chapter. He was awarded the Star Chapter Farm Award his senior year.
He was a 1963 graduate of the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) where he was the chancellor of the Alpha Zeta, a national agriculture fraternity. He later attended LSU to pursue a masters in agriculture, but dropped out to enlist in the military, Trahan said.
“He really wanted to farm,” she said. “That was his life goal, but he wanted to get his military obligation out of the way so he could farm. Everyone tried to talk him out of going, but he wouldn’t listen. Military was important to his family and he volunteered to go.”
He was assigned to Company A, 8th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division and received his basic training at Fort Polk.
Vietnam was his first assignment and he had only be there about six months when he was killed, she said.
Fellow classmate Wayne Phenice, who was also serving in Vietnam, identified Gillett’s remains and escorted the body home.
He is buried in the Oak Lawn Cemetery in Welsh.
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